Spring Court

Spring Court

Name

Continent

Notable Residents

The Spring Court is one of the seven courts of Prythian and one of the four seasonal courts. The High Lord of this court is Tamlin gifted with great strength and the magic to change his shape and the shape of others.

Geography

The Spring Court is a land of rolling green hills and lush forests and clear, bottomless lakes. Magic didn’t just abound in the bumps and the hollows – it grew there. The Court borders the wall and likewise the Mortal Realm.

The personal residence of the High Lord of the Spring Court is a magnificent manor sprawled across a rolling green land. It was veiled in roses and ivy, with patios and balconies and staircases sprouting from its alabaster sides. The grounds were encased by woods but stretched so far that one can barely see the distant line of the forest. Inside, it was even more opulent. Black-and-white chequered marble floor shone, flowing to countless doors and a sweeping staircase. A long hall stretched ahead to the giant glass doors at the other end of the house, and through them is a second garden, grander than the one out front. The manor house contains a study, a private library, a small but well-stocked infirmary and a gallery.

While the Spring Court boasts no cities, a large village is located close to the High Lord’s estate, less than five miles away. Most of the village was destroyed due to Amarantha; however, a tavern and a well in the middle of the village had been completely rebuilt.

History

During the War, the Spring Court allied with Hybern to keep the humans enslaved. So Tamlin’s father – his father, who was a fickle and vicious Lord – was very close to the King of Hybern, to Amarantha. Tamlin as a child often accompanied him on trips to Hybern. And he met Amarantha in the process.

Amarantha eventually grew to desire Tamlin – to lust for him with her entire wicked heart. Tamlin had heard the stories from others about the War and knew what Amarantha and his father and the Hybern king had done to faeries and humans alike. What she did to Jurian as punishment for her sister’s death. He was wary of her when she came to Prythian as the King of Hybern’s emissary, despite her attempts to lure him into her bed and the attempts to build trade between the two nations – and kept his distance, right up until Amarantha stole the powers of the High Lord’s and crowned herself the High Queen of Prythian.

Lucien was sent to her as Tamlin’s emissary, to try to treat for peace between them. She refused, and Lucien told her to go back to the shit-hole she’d crawled out of. She took his eye as punishment. Carved it out with her own fingernail then scarred his face. She sent him back so bloody that Tamlin vomited when he saw his friend.

After that, she hosted a masquerade Under the Mountain for herself. All the courts were present. A party, she said – to make amends for what she’d done to Lucien, and a masquerade so he didn’t have to reveal the horrible scarring on his face. The entire Spring Court was to attend, even the servants, and to wear masks – to honor Tamlin’s shape-shifting powers, she said. He was willing to try to end the conflict without slaughter, and he agreed to go – to bring all of us.

When the entire Spring Court was assembled, Amarantha claimed that peace could be had – if Tamlin joined her as her lover and consort. But when she tried to touch him, he refused to let her near. Not after what she’d done to Lucien. He said – in front of everyone that night – that he would sooner take a human to his bed, sooner marry a human, than ever touch her. She might have let it go, had he not then said that her own sister had preferred a human’s company to
hers, that her own sister had chosen Jurian over her.

But
she told Tamlin that she was in a generous mood – told him she’d give him a chance to break the spell she’d put upon him to steal his power. She said he had seven times seven years before she claimed him before he had to join her Under the Mountain. If he wanted to break her curse, he need only find a human girl willing to marry him. But not any girl – a human with ice in her heart, with hatred for our kind. A human girl willing to kill a faerie.

The faerie she killed had to be one of his men, sent across the wall by him like lambs to slaughter. The girl could only be brought here to be courted if she killed one of his men in an unprovoked attack – killed him for hatred alone, just as Jurian had done to Clythia. So he could understand her sister’s pain.

It was all a cruel joke, a clever punishment, to Amarantha. But the spell on Tamlin could only be broken if she did just that before the forty-nine years were over – if that girl said to his face that she loved him, and meant it with her entire heart. Amarantha knew humans are preoccupied with beauty, and thus bound the masks to all the Spring faeries faces, to his face, so it would be more difficult to find a girl willing to look beyond the mask, beyond his faerie nature, and to the soul beneath. Then she bound them so they couldn’t say a word about the curse. Not a single word.

Trivia

Unlike the Night Court the Spring Court has a tithe, where its subjects pay a forced tribute. If unable to pay the consequences are disastrous.